If you, like me, live in the EU, Facebook is now entirely clamping down and forcing free users to make their personal data available for monetization.
Attempting to access any Facebook domain and perhaps also other meta products will redirect you to the following prompt with a choice between either accepting the monetization of your user data, or coughing up a region-dependent monthly subscription fee: base (for me ~10€) + an additional fee (~7€) for each additional facebook or instagram account you have.
Now, the hidden third option. At an initial glance, it seems like there is no other option but to click one of the buttons - however, certain links still work, and grant access to important pieces of functionality through your web browser.
If anyone has information to add regarding Facebook or Instagram, please do share it. I've only (begrudgingly) used the former up until now, but I know many others use Instagram and don't feel like giving a single cent (nor their personal info) to Meta.
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https://www.facebook.com/dyi - perhaps most important of all, now is a good time to make a request to download your Facebook data. Don't forget to switch to data for "all time" and "high quality" if you intend to permanently delete your account.
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https://www.facebook.com/your_information - here you can find and manage your information, but crucially also access Facebook messenger.
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The messenger app: Still hasn't prompted me with anything, though I expect that will change in the not too far future.
Currently my plan is to use messenger to inform any important friends that I intend to leave FB, and where they'll be able to reach me in the future.
This forced me to look into hosting an own social media as a replacement for me, my friends and acquaintances. Where we can chat, upload files, organise events, and make posts about all sorts of things.
Anyone got a recommendation for software, preferably open source?
Humhub looked promising, but the "free" version only allows 5 people, which is just dumb.
Akkoma dropped support for chats, which sucks tennis balls.
The others are too technical for many of the people I know. They just want something like Facebook, but that I host myself. Not the "every device is its own node" type of deal.
And connection to the fediverse definitely isn't a necessity.
All by all Friendica looks the most promising.
How did this specifically make it worse? They didn't follow the GDPR before so choosing free is the exact same as before.
This is just their latest attempt at avoiding the GDPR and last I checked taking payment for not tracking someone is a grey zone in the GDPR. After looking at the law it shouldn't be allowed but it might be. Who knows. Other sites do it as well.
If anything this has bought them time.
Because I was willing to pay, but not for the exuberant amount they ask.
It also made it worse in the sense that now friends were discussing it on their own, which did not happen before.
Friendica should fit the bill right there for you. Or if you don't want ActivityPub, check out diaspora*. There's also Hubzilla which uses AP as well, but internally it uses its own Zot protocol.
I was looking into Friendica, and it also looks promising. But the lack of an ios app may be a dealbreaker for some of my friends.
Diaspora has the same issue, although the integration with other social media is interesting.
Huzilla is a bit more for filesharing, isn't it?
All in all, I think Friendica is indeed one of the better bets.
Mastodon?
Sadly no groupchat features.
Otherwise, solid choice!
https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/pull/19059 they are adding one
you can use create a matrix server for e2e conversations.